The system and methods are intended to be used throughout the consumer electronics and leisure & entertainment industries; including by an issuer entity, which distributes collector cards and collectible information; a service provider, which renders and facilitates a plurality of card-related products and services; and by a cardholder, who acquires and uses the collector card.
The system deploys a plurality of functional components and a set of computer programs to implement its operational tasks, including the communications of data and the usage of the collector card between and among the above system user.
The functional components encompass, for example, PCs or other computing platforms, communications terminals, card read/write devices and other data capture equipment, biometrics boxes and other computer peripherals, and the collector card. These components can be connected via a multi-directional communications link to allow the exchange of data/information between and among the systems entities including the cardholder. The system components are off-the-shelf hardware devices that can be purchased from retailers/computer stores, procured from component manufacturers or its distributors, or acquired from providers of networking/communications services. The communication links can be implemented via the Internet or any other commercial available, wirebased or wireless network technology.
The computer programs perform the house-keeping assignments, computing and decisioning functions, application-specific routines, and the communications/networking tasks necessary for the system's operations and card usage. These programs further include security means, such as cryptographic schemes, digital signatures and authenticity codes, to protect the system, cardholders and card contents against fraudulent use. The software programs reside within the system's components including the electronic collector card. In this way, a cardholder/system user can instruct the system to select and execute a plurality of computerized means or operational functions under the auspices of the software programs and the guidance of command buttons, template files and pull-up/pop-down menus embedded into the system or stored in the card.
The system further comprises a database scheme for storing a set of data and information in a distributed manner among a plurality of database components associated with the plurality of system users, including the collector card. The database scheme comprises means for automatically interchanging a selected number of data elements, from among said set of data/information, between and among all database components via the communication link whenever such data elements are inputted including modified by a particular system entity. In this way, the network of system database components, including the collector card per se, acts and behaves as a single integrated database that always contains and automatically delivers--anytime, anywhere--the most up to date set of those data and information.